QUITE a week for ESPN. As far as we can tell, no one, TV or radio side, was fired, suspended or reprimanded for inappropriate behavior. That constitutes a streak worthy of “Plays of the Week.”

But that certainly doesn’t mean that ESPN has ceased encouraging behavior among its viewers that it discourages – and punishes – among its employees.

Consider, in a moment, an ad for ESPN’s latest Summer X-Games. The X-Games, for the still uninitiated, is short for Extreme Games, which is short for Extremely Dangerous Games.

They’re not so much games as they are stunts, and they’re the commercial by-product of the adolescent, neighborhood dare and double-dare. They’re the kinds of bicycle, skateboard stunts that dad would threaten to kill you for trying – if you survived.

In fact, the first X-Games press kit that ESPN distributed contained bios that both listed and trumpeted the many stunt-related serious injuries and surgeries that the participants had survived. The more the merrier. “Plasma, fresh cold plasma! Get your plasma here!”

Winter and Summer X-Games provide ESPN with year-long, easy-to-assemble filler programming/promotion. X-Game “Blooper” shows air at any old time. They appear almost entirely of hideous, hillside wipeouts set to heavy metal music. No word is provided as to the condition of the anonymous performer. There’s no time. It’s on to the next “blooper” victim.

But ESPN has even helped change the meaning of blooper, from comical to surgical.

ESPN has produced, packaged and promoted its X-Games – aimed, naturally, at the young, male demographic (it’s the only demographic sports strategists feel is worthy of attracting) – as one of its proudest original and continuing programming achievements. Inspired by ESPN, deep thinkers at NBC, and then Fox, added to their networks their own versions.

The ESPN X-Games ad that caught our attention depicts a bunch of kids, boys in their early teens, playing a form of street hockey in front of a convenience store that they have rendered inconvenient. Using the tires of their dirt bicycles as sticks, and a plastic bottle pallet as the puck, they’ve chosen the parking lot, smack in front of the store’s entrance, for their rink.

The store owner looks out on the scene from his empty establishment. He sees an empty parking lot, except for the kids. He’s clearly perplexed. The kids have hurt his ability to conduct business, to make a living.

Finally, he opens the front door and hollers that he has called the cops. The kids disperse. A billboard for the X-Games appears and that’s how ESPN’s latest attitude-enriched commercial ends.

So what’s the message here? Given that the kids on the bikes represent the X-Games’ target audience, is the store owner a bad guy for chasing the kids? Are the kids the good guys for pursuing their pleasure to the detriment of a man’s property and business?

We can only conclude that Disney-owned ESPN, promoter of socially sensitive behavior within its doors, remains eager to promote desensitized behavior in all others, but especially in its most cherished viewers, young males.

And if ESPN is so damned hip, so edgy, why not show those kids choking the flow of traffic into a Disney Store?

This X-Games spot, as if we couldn’t tell, was produced for ESPN by the ad firm of Wieden & Kennedy, which has relentlessly tethered bad-boy – and worse – images and messages to sports products for years, since first hooking up with Nike to sell $20 sneakers as $195 mean-streets status symbols.

Meanwhile, it strikes us as ironic that if ESPN succeeds in promoting and instilling desensitized behavior in the young while continuing to punish insensitive behavior in its employees, the day will come when ESPN will be left without any qualified people to hire.

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The candidates to replace the retired Sal Messina as Rangers’ radio analyst are down to two: Ex-Islander and ex-Ranger Pat Flatley and former Ranger and NYC native Brian Mullen.

While ex-mobster Michael Franzese’s recent claims to HBO about fixed games have created a commotion, they aren’t new. Franzese made similar public claims in 1996 . . . MSG Network is preparing to launch a series of half-hour shows starring Al Leiter talking real-deal, nuts-and-bolts pitching.

Bobby Knight’s violent temper has again brought him financial reward through a TV commercial, this one for plastic containers that don’t melt in dishwashers. Knight again stars as a raving lunatic, thus he continues to cash in on a reputation that he both rejects and claims to abhor. It’s the John McEnroe formula.